How to Perk-Up Your Porch with a Spot of Color
Spring has been delayed this year. I must confess that I have not been disappointed in that my allergies have held off until this last week. Then BAM! Today I am spending time indoors and thought I would share with you my front porch perk up.
If you are like me, you enjoy seeing those urns filled with flowers spilling over the edge. I love the look, but boy can those be pricey! I cannot afford to change out everything each season, so... I decided to choose planters large enough to hold rosemary topiaries with room to grow and still allow for a pop of color spilling over the edge. Rosemary topiaries are great year round. You can plant pansies around them in winter, verbena or wave petunia during the spring, summer and fall or you can choose Calabrachoa like I did in my arrangement. These guys can handle a bit of heat, but they don't tolerate long hours of full sun exposure. They are perfect for transitioning to summer and give the look of a petunia, but with a smaller, more proportionate profile in a pot sized like mine.
Since these types of projects are an investment, I tried to choose pots that were timeless and a main plant that would survive for years. I set a budget of $100. I know, that sounds like a lot for two pots. It is! But, I invested in the pots and rosemary topiaries for long term/all-season use. I could not find pots that I liked in black, so I had to purchase bronze colored pots at Aldi and spray paint them myself. Here is the original color in the photo below. You can see that it was very plain and did not stand out against my white wood porch.
Finding Rosemary Topiaries is a bit tough this time of year. Many nurseries carry the wilder, free form plants, but not trained rosemary. There is one local nursery nearby that has them nearly year round - Homegrown Plants, Farmersville, TX. I love this place. To start, they carry everything you need to plant a beautiful flower garden, herb, or vegetable and the most amazing hanging plants. Their prices are almost always less expensive than any other nursery and they grown their plants on-site. I love this place and will take time in a future post to shoot some video of their shop.
They had the plain, cone shaped topiaries for $24.95 and the circle and diamond shapes for $29.95. It hard to tell in the photos, but these are about 2 feet tall. They carry flats of just about any flower you can imagine. The one that keeps catching my eye this year is the Calabrachoa. I never noticed this type of plant before and I am not sure how unless it is a newer variety. They come in the single flower version and a double flower which has a slightly fuller flower and no center cone. I chose the purple color because I felt it would really stand out against my white house paint. Plus, the bright yellow inside is an amazing accent. Home Grown plants carries these for $3.95/a small pot. I purchased a huge basket for $19.99 and it is so much fuller than buying them young and waiting all season for them to grow. I got larger plants and saved about $10. When you divide a pot, you have to be really careful when separating vining plants like these as they become tangled. Make sure to take you time and separate them carefully before digging them up to transplant. When the summer nears an end, I will simply replace the trailing flowers with something more appropriate for the season. Below are a few photos showing the basket before transplanting them, a close-up of the Calabrachoa flower and the finished project.
I posted a few photos on social media a while back and had a few people ask how I refinished my front door. Here is a close-up of the door. I painted it with a greenish gray chalk paint and rubbed on a coat of dark brown wax. The cold weather actually made the chalk paint crackle a bit, which ended up being a nice surprise. It was then sealed with a spray on clear coat that is UV resistant. Reminds me of old lead paint without the toxins. It has held up remarkably well and I just love it.
Sometimes the imperfections of a project actually end up making it better than what you originally had in mind. I hope this has inspired some of you to freshen up an old pot with paint, purchase a rosemary topiary or maybe add some color to a pot you already have. Happy late Spring y'all.
